The international Olympic torch relay is now a sorry sight. Far from bringing nations together in harmony ahead of the Beijing games, the relay has provoked confrontation and racial animosity and fanned the flames of Chinese nationalism.
Even as a visual spectacle – the torch journey was invented by the Nazis for the 1936 Berlin games – the 2008 version has been a flop. The event will be remembered not for long-limbed athletes holding the torch aloft but for protests over Tibet and the sight of Chinese security guards surrounding a succession of runners, including (next week) Hong Kong bureaucrats and tycoons, as they shuffle towards the next torch-bearer.
